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Margaret Cho recalls painful high school bullying to empower other survivors of rape

By the time Margaret Cho dropped out of high school at 17, she’d had enough.

The future comedy star had been raped by an acquaintance at the age of 14 and instead of finding compassion at her high school in San Francisco, she encountered cruelty.

‘Some kids at school found out and bullied me over it – they were animals,’ Margaret says in this week’s issue of People Magazine.

‘It is very painful and disturbing when you realize the depth of apathy out there toward the suffering of victims.’

But the final straw came a few years later when one of her favorite teachers was murdered. The reaction by some of her fellow students was, once again, cruel, as they made fun of what happened because the teacher was killed for being gay.

Margaret had already endured some serious trauma even before she arrived at high school. Beginning she was just five years old, she was molested by a family friend and the abuse lasted for more than seven years.

She is channeling her rage and celebrating her survival in her current psyCHO comedy tour during which she gleefully sings the song I Want to Kill My Rapist.

‘People don’t realize the power they have,’ Margaret says. ‘They don’t realize that it you’ve had this happen to you, you can help other people.